


Brunette and Blonde

by Elevin



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Gen, Science Fiction, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-30 11:16:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13950423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elevin/pseuds/Elevin
Summary: Chaeyoung and Jeongyeon are roommates. Their friendship gets put to the test when a foreigner, Momo, becomes their neighbor. However, there's something oddly off with one of them.





	1. Off Duty

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing as a go along. Not much planning going on but I have some idea what I want. Don't expect it to end and don't expect it to be accurate.  
> Follow @tallchae and @/DM me if you want to suggest anything, I'm all ears.

Chaeyoung sits alone in her unlit room, the glow from her computer glimmers on her face as she moves the stylus about elegantly across the drawing pad on the desk. Her fingers move robotically on the keyboard, erasing mistakes as simple as pressing two keys and accessing shortcuts within palm's reach. Her eyes are focused on the moving lines and colors being printed on the screen, while her hands that are orchestrating the keys and cursor to her imagination are on the dark wooden desk.

 She suddenly stops. To her, it feels like her work is almost complete. Only a few details need to be added before it's finished. But her cursor is moving to a different position. The exit button. She clicks it and a dialog box pops up.

'Are you sure you want to exit without saving?'

Click.

Without hesitation. All that work, gone.

Chaeyoung lets out a long sigh before shutting down her computer and tablet.

 _Maybe today's not the day._  She thought to herself. Pushing her office chair back, she leans back to a full body stretch.  _Maybe tomorrow will inspire me._

Chaeyoung drags her feet to the bed and plants her face into her pillow. Just as she was about to catch a blink of sleep, her phone rings. 'Noisy bitch' was on the caller ID. 

"H- Hello...?" Chaeyoung answers dreadfully.

The voice from her phone screeched her eardrums by surprise.

"GET OVER HERE, NOW!" the voice demanded. Well, her caller ID wasn't lying. The shock from the voice was enough to wake her from her sleepy daze. The call ended before she could reply.

 _Oh great, what does this bitch want THIS time?_  Chaeyoung sits up on her bed and rubs her eyes. _Must’ve been a long night. What time is it anyway?_ Chaeyoung looks at the time on her phone.

8:03 am.

_Ohh… Shit. I’m late._

-

Just a few blocks away, fresh out of the shower, Jeongyeon is brushing the knots out of her long brunette hair. The conditioner she used wasn’t working for her. Figures, it was stolen from a sleazy motel she stayed in before she got her currently cramped two-room apartment. Her strength in brushing was nonchalant but strong. A few pulled strands didn’t bother her, as long as the brush strokes get smooth, she didn’t care much.

She didn’t bother wrapping a towel around her body. It was her own apartment, her own safe space, and she chooses not to waste her effort in piling on the laundry. Efficiency and organization are her forte. Besides, the bathroom is literally a door away from her bedroom.

Jeongyeon is getting ready for her 9 am shift down at the convenience store, a couple blocks away.

 _‘It’s just a temporary job before I find a stable income job’_ she said to herself when she started the job 16 months ago. Who was she kidding? Her resume wasn’t impressive enough for those white-collar executives to consider looking at. But it didn’t bring her down anyway. This job taught her a lot of things about the real world and its people. The people. Mainly the reason why she always chose the morning shifts. To avoid the weird ones at night. Sure, she could handle herself during the night shifts, but it’s better to avoid them altogether.

A few minutes pass and she’s already fully dressed and out the door, timing her walking pace just enough so that she would always clock in just in time. Well, efficiency is her forte, after all.

“Morning, miss manager.” Jeongyeon says as she enters the staff door in the back. The manager was stocking the fridges out front with energy drinks on the bottom shelf, so her back was turned.

“Hey Jeong, just in time. Take this over for me, my back is killing me.” the manager informs.

“Maybe you should try a smaller cup size” Jeongyeon playfully suggested. She grabs her red work vest and wears it over her button-down white shirt.

“Oh, Ha Hah. Maybe if you would stop looking at them from time to time, it’d shrink down in size?” the manager returns her remark. Both of them slightly chuckle at the absurdity. The manager stands up and pushes on her back, cracking her spine which Jeongyeon could hear from the other side of the swinging door.’

“Geez, you weren’t kidding” Jeongyeon cringes at the sound while she puts on her nametag on the vest – making her way to the fridges. Making sure it’s straight and secure. She instinctively compares it to her manager’s. ‘Jihyo’ as it says on her manager’s nametag.

“I’ll take over. That sounds painful.” She suggested.

“Thanks.” Jihyo was relieved. Jeongyeon grabbed the energy drinks and arranged it in order at the speed of an accountant’s calculator (that’s pretty quick). Jihyo is still amazed at Jeongyeon’s skills even when they started working together at the same time. Jihyo leans her chin on the nearest rack beside her, still in awe of what she’s seeing in her store.

“Hey, Jeong?” Jihyo calls out to Jeongyeon who’s almost finishing up the stocking. Jeongyeon replies with a heightened tone from her throat.

“I’ve been thinking” Jeongyeon turns a curious head at Jihyo’s sentence. “Why did you reject the promotion to the manager position when you’re clearly better at this than I am?” Jihyo asks while Jeongyeon finishes up stocking the fridge.

Jeongyeon took a few seconds to reply, pondering if she should tell her a constructed truth to direct her attention away from her irresponsibility.

“You deserve it more than I do. I’m…not that great… in managing people. That’s why.” Her tone of voice slowly became timid. Jihyo lets out a long understanding note.

_It’s true in some way. Jihyo is great at managing people- she greets customers with the brightest smile and offers help whenever I needed it. Plus, the manager’s job isn’t the most labor-intensive job here, so she needed to take it easy a little._

“Well, since you helped me, you can take an hour off early today. I’ll call up s-”

“It’s fine” Jeongyeon interrupted. “It’s gonna be a hassle for you. I don’t want to trouble you like that.” She insisted. Jihyo raises an eyebrow.

“Okay… if you say so.” Jihyo proceeds to the clock-out machine and scans her fingerprint in the backroom. Jeongyeon makes her way behind the register where there aren’t any stools to sit on, but a plastic carton on its side covered by a newspaper.

_The upper management doesn’t allow their employees to sit on the job in case anything happens in the store, they need us to be alert. But let’s be real, our legs aren’t made of steel._

_We need a break every now and then._

_Not all of us are inhuman._

-


	2. A Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to put some visual aid in to see how it turns out. You can find me on twitter @tallchae

Chaeyoung runs out the building and onto the streets of Seoul with her backpack firmly hugged by her arms and her black hooded pullover covers her head to block out the rays of the bright sun.

_Why did I neglect my sleep again, ugh!_

She runs, dodges, weaves past the human traffic blocking her way, evading any collisions that could slow her down. But all that dodging made her expend more energy than just running in a straight line. Who knew? Well, she didn’t. All that extra movements made her huffing forward on the street, where even the people she dodged by had already walked past her. She needs to regain her energy.

[ ](https://imgur.com/n0xrCza)

Chaeyoung looks around her and sees the entrance to the convenience store just to her right. How convenient. She figured a short pit stop isn’t such a bad idea. The black hooded girl entered the store, inhaling through her dehydrated mouth. She notices the taller girl behind the register but pays no mind, she’s here for sustenance.

She grabbed anything that stood out as ‘Energy’, which is apparently just a chocolate bar and a coconut juice drink. She drops them on the counter, but still hugging her backpack tightly. Chaeyoung drops a handful of coins from her pocket, she didn’t care how much it was, she just wanted the drink,

Jeongyeon does her job and scans the items but can’t help but notice something about the smaller hooded girl. She could only see the lower part of her face from the hood since Chaeyoung is looking downwards. She sees a feature that’s recognizable anywhere, it might as well be her trademark. A mole on the left side of her lips.

Jeongyeon raises her eyebrow. Is this who she thought she was? Was this someone she knew? She felt the need to point out that she knew her from somewhere.

“Chae?” Jeongyeon spoke when handing her bag of items. The hooded girl raised her head to see the register girl looking straight at her in awe.

Chaeyoung gave an awkward look to Jeongyeon.

_Who are you? How did you know my name?_

Chaeyoung looks at her nametag on Jeongyeon’s vest. She doesn’t recognize her name. She felt weird. She needed to get out of there quick. She grabbed her plastic bag and paced out the glass door.

Jeongyeon vaulted over the counter and chased after Chaeyoung. She reached out and turned Chaeyoung around by her right shoulder.

“Chaeng! You don’t remember me?” Jeong tries to jog her memory.

“We were in the same neighborhood together, remember?” She added. Chaeyoung suddenly received a memory flash back when she was younger. All she remembered was playing in the sandpit with another kid. Nothing more.

Chaeyoung pulled down her hood further and walked down the street briskly.

 _What the hell was that? How did she know me? I’ve never seen her before in my life!... Or did I?  This is what I get for not sleeping enough._ Her steps grew faster and faster. She had to hurry. She had a weird feeling that she can’t shake around the taller girl.

Jeongyeon was left out in the street looking at Chaeyoung running away into the crowd. She can’t chase after her. She can’t just abandon her work just to chase someone that tried to run away from her. She returns into the store to pick up the coins that Chaeyoung dropped on the counter. One sweep of the hand scoops up all the coins, but she felt something irregular in the pile of coins. Jeongyeon opens her palm to see a single silver key among the bronze.

_She must’ve left it here by accident. But she’s already lost in the crowd._ Jeongyeon keeps the coins in the register but the key in her button-down shirt pocket. She might need to return it back after her shift is over.

-

On the third floor of a small office studio, six blocks away – stood Miss Im Nayeon, the director of Calashare Designs™, looking at the small hooded Chaeyoung running towards the entrance through her office window. Chaeyoung passes security and pushes the glass door open. She rushes up the stairs to the third floor to meet with the director.

“Sorry I’m late, director!” Chaeyoung apologizes while flipping her hood off her head. Chaeyoung slides out a laptop from her backpack in front of her and rests it on the desk. She opens it and turned it to face the director. Nayeon did not seem amused. She didn’t even take a glance at the laptop screen. Her annoyance was clearly not on the work that Chaeyoung made, but Chaeyoung herself.

“You’ve disappointed me.” Nayeon remarked. “Time and time again. So now tell me, why should I keep you here in this company, when you’ve proven nothing to me?” she asked Chaeyoung. It was a rhetorical question by the tone of her voice. Chaeyoung just stood still, bowing her head in respect. Nayeon suddenly stood up and walked intimidatingly towards Chaeyoung.

“Is this the thanks I get? For giving you a roof over your head? For not making your parents worried about you when you wanted to move here? What would they say? What would your father say?” Nayeon piled on the guilt. Chaeyoung just stood there, not being able to say anything. Nayeon recomposed herself.

“I’m taking back the house.” Nayeon said with a purpose. At that moment, Chaeyoung raised her head in shock.

“I’ll have to teach you a lesson to not take things for granted.” She says while returning behind her desk. “I’ve already called the repo men. They’re moving out the furniture as we speak”. Chaeyoung started breathing heavily with tears forming in her eyes.

_No no no no no no this can’t be happening! Where am I going to go now you bitch?! I have nowhere else to go you stupid bitch!!_

Chaeyoung’s heavy breathing got more frequent and panicky. She took one big gulp and snuffles. One last look at Nayeon before she grabs her laptop, storms out of the building and running back to her former home. Nayeon buzzes for her secretary. She comes through the office seconds later.

“Yes, miss director?” the quirky young secretary answered. The small and innocent smile of the secretary grew weary upon the look of the director’s face.

“Keep an eye on that girl, and report to me if anything unusual happens.” Nayeon demanded.

“Right away, director.” the secretary said acceptedly.

“Oh, and Dubu” Nayeon added. “Don’t let her see you.” She nodded as she made her way out the office.

-


End file.
